Features March 25, 2020

Boo Seeka talk new music and explain the importance of management

Steve Kavakos

I sit nestled in a booth at a café in Melbourne’s West, the smell of fresh roasted coffee permeates through my nostrils, and as I peer around the café one can’t help but notice the uncomfortable, fear-driven Melburnians attempting to practise social distancing. People, sidestepping out of other people’s way, others peering at their cutlery as if it had already been dropped on the ground.

Yet here we are, chatting with electronic-hip hop duo Boo Seeka and Tom Caw, manager and owner of Untitled group, who has just signed the pair to its label and management roster. We dissect how vital his new signing is to the agency and likewise for members of Boo Seeka, Ben and Michael.

Navigating the music industry is by no means an easy task, both Tom and Boo Seeka outline how the right representation can make an artist’s dreams come true. Untitled has its routes firmly entrenched within the music industry via the ever-growing popular festivals Beyond The Valley and Wild Lands.

It would seem having the right representation is more important than ever during the outbreak of the menacing Coronavirus. The world needs music more than ever, and artists likewise, need guidance to navigate the uncertain future of live performance. Tom outlines how important the symbiotic relationship between artist and manager is, and how it can change a melancholy time to create magic.

Where does Boo Seeka come from?

Ben: The day and age we live in now, you can find out anything you want about any subject, so If we can keep some mystery alive we will. I mean, I know what it means for me. But I love what it means to everyone else. It’s like art; it’s the same as when you go to a gallery and look at the art, there’s a mystery behind the painting, that’s the same as our name.

How did Boo Seeka come together?

Ben: We met quickly and started touring swiftly. We started writing music on trains and planes. We met under funny circumstances—we met through my sister… we worked at Boost Juice together when we were younger, and we didn’t know until we figured it out much later.

Michael: There was no real plan, that was right up until the first record, we were recording in RV’s and the street, and you know it’s a great memory for us, we moved so quickly on our first record, we didn’t have time to appreciate what we were doing, until it took us right up until 2019 to reflect and see what we had accomplished with the first record, to our current music, which is much different.

Boo Seeka

I guess this is where management comes in. How did you meet Tom?

Ben: Tom and I ran into each other at the backstage of a festival.

Tom: This relationship started kicking off when I invited Ben to our place before Grapevine in New South Wales last year, and Ben and I were having a chat, and he was saying he was out of management, and I mentioned Untitled to him, my management company. They were (Boo Seeka) stringing us on for a little while, but I just treated it as If I was already managing them.

Michael: I think it’s essential to take your time when all the offers are coming in, I mean we have spoken to Tom four times a day for the last five months, you talk to your manager more than your partner, more than your family, so you have to like them also.

Tom: You spend so much time with these people, you need to like them and enjoy hanging out with them, if you’re a musician it’s your life, so your manager becomes a life partner of sorts, so you have to like hanging out with each other otherwise, it won’t work,

Ben: Same with a band member, I am literally with Michael more than I am with my family and my friends, and that’s how important it is to have someone or people that you trust. It is a trust factor.

As a manager, what are you looking for talent wise?

Tom: Well for me when I’m looking at talent it’s a presence thing, I think stage presence is so hard to teach, and when I heard that first song I didn’t know if they had a stage presence, and then after seeing them play I said ‘these guys have got it’.

What can we expect from you in 2020?

Michael: Our new music is fresh, the sounds, the writing and our management, it’s all gone up. And you know it’s all going in a direction we wanted. Especially for our new music. It’s fresh and new. I think it’s also worth noting when Ben writes tunes. He gets into a headspace where he doesn’t listen to music. So I will be sending him songs, and he won’t reply, and I know he hasn’t listened to them?

And why is that?

Ben: Because I don’t want to be influenced by them, so I don’t listen to other music. I know it sounds super weird, but even when I get into cars I don’t have the radio on, I’ll be inspired by a train going past, or the street sounds, I get inspired by the sounds of everyday life. I’ve never had a singing lesson or guitar lesson in my life, the only reason why I sing—my old band back at school—no one wanted to sing, and one of the fathers had five straws, and the shortest one had to sing, mine was the quickest.

Tom: We are playing it day by day, so at the moment this lockdown is going to last six months, so we are using this time to focus on people like Boo Seeka, focusing on streaming and alternative methods of engagement, getting their music out there. Social media, and being live on Instagram and Facebook over the next six months.